Moments
by bcbdrums
Summary: The first thing Shego was aware of was the sound of running water. Then, the feeling of being well-rested. She smiled and stretched herself out from head to toe...and then she froze. She was far too warm. And it took only another moment to figure out why.


**_A/N: So this came after...three days of writing thousands of words of what ended with writer's block, and I needed to write something else. And this popped into my head. It can be read as a sequel to "Empty Embrace" but it also stands alone. Enjoy!_**

* * *

The lair was too cold, and the bed was too hot. Shego rolled over for the umpteenth time that night and squished her pillow under her head. That was even more uncomfortable, so she rolled to her other side again. The sheets twisted at her feet, and with a groan she sat up and threw back the blankets. She stripped off her pajamas, shivering in the chill, and then straightened the sheets. She fluffed her pillow and lay down again, pinching her eyes shut and willing herself to sleep.

The only problem was, each time her eyes closed she saw the past twenty-four hours on a high-definition replay. From Drakken's abduction by the Lorwardians to their being approached by the authorities who wanted his plant mutagen, she remembered every moment in vivid detail and she couldn't turn the memories off.

She pulled the blankets higher, covering her nose as she shivered. She opened her eyes and stared at the darkness of her room back in the Caribbean lair. She hadn't slept at all since Drakken's abduction. There had been the twelve hours on a plane to the mainland, the attempt to steal a rocket, teaming up with Stoppable, actually finding Drakken, and then—she shuddered—saving the world.

When they finally agreed the world had had enough saving—when the National Guard had stopped them—they spent another hour arguing with the authorities about Drakken's rights to his own invention and about their right to their freedom. The world had a common enemy now, why bother small-town villains? Especially when the world was only free because of them.

Drakken had gloated all the way back to the lair about his newfound status in the eyes of the world and how everyone owed him their allegiance due to his heroics. He was sure he'd be ruling the world in no time. Shego had only bantered with him for a few minutes, exhaustion winning over the desire to belittle him even when those yellow petals popped out around his head. And when they had returned by accident to their recently destroyed but favorite lair, she realized she was too tired to care.

Three hours of attempting to sleep later, she was about ready to give up. Maybe some mindless TV would help...

She threw the hot blankets back again, and shivering she put her pajamas back on. After donning her robe and slippers she tiptoed out to the kitchen for a glass of water. When she poured the glass she realized she was famished, and she tried to remember when she last ate. She frowned when she couldn't, and opened the fridge to make a snack. The dim fluorescent lighting showed only orange juice and nearly-empty condiment jars. She moved next to the cupboards and found them bare as well.

She furrowed her brow. Even when lairs were destroyed, Drakken tended to leave the electricity on just in case of situations like the one they found themselves in. So what had happened to the food?

She downed two glasses of water and then poured a third before heading back to her room. She'd have to ask Drakken about the food in the morning. At least he was getting sleep...

As she passed his door in the hall she had a flash of the abduction again: the beam pulling him up and away from her, the terrified look on his face, and then the ship vanishing up into the stars. The fear she'd felt in the following hours—that she'd find him dead—clenched irrationally around her heart again, and impulsively she stepped back to his door and put in the code to enter.

She expected to quietly peek in on him sleeping, the room bathed in its ominous yellowish glow from the moat. But that's not what she saw.

Drakken jumped when the door slid open, as if he'd just been caught attempting to swipe her DNA. He was sitting cross-legged atop the bed in his pajamas and slippers, the ceiling-mounted TV playing an old 'Pals' re-run, and the bed was absolutely covered in food. There was a full bagged loaf of white bread, open jars of peanut butter and jam with knives sticking out, a giant bowl of popcorn from which several kernels had escaped, a bunch of bananas with one empty peel dropped on the floor, and a half-empty gallon of milk sitting up atop his tricked-out headboard. There was also a mug steaming with something. Probably chocolate milk.

"Oh," Drakken said, his voice muffled. Shego saw him swallow and noted the sandwich in his hand. "Shego. Wh-what—"

He was interrupted by a coughing fit, and he reached up on the headboard behind him for his mug.

Shego crossed her arms and frowned. "This explains why there's no food in the kitchen. You going to eat everything in the lair tonight?"

Drakken downed the contents of his mug and then set it back on the headboard.

"I happen to be hungry, Shego. There was no food in captivity on the alien warship."

Shego felt a pain in her stomach. Probably from hunger, not worry. He was fine.

She watched as he dropped some formerly-unnoticed chocolate bars in the mug and then poured milk over it. Then he produced a ray gun from under his pillow, adjusted the settings to low, and used it to heat the cup.

"Well..." she said as he stirred the beverage, "I'm hungry too. You need to put this back."

He glared at her. "I'm not done yet."

She stepped into the room and picked her way across the moat until she was next to the bed. She cringed at the sight of the mess up-close.

"Just pick something so I can eat too. I haven't eaten since... Since..." She tried to remember again the last time she ate. They'd never had a chance to eat at the lair in the Pacific. So it must have been back at the Himalayan lair... "Rrgh, just give me something!"

She grabbed the bananas and turned to leave, but found herself thrown suddenly off-balance by a force pulling her from behind. She stumbled back against the bed and fell on it hard, the peanut butter and jam jars bouncing up and rolling off onto the floor.

"Hey!" she said, turning around with her hands flaring. He let go of the bananas with a gasp, wringing his hands where her glow had burned him. The bananas charred black in her grip with a sickly sweet smell, and she tossed them in the moat where they sank with a hiss of rising steam.

"What did you do that for!?" he whined, picking up pieces of popcorn that had bounced out of the bowl when she fell.

"_You_ grabbed them!" she retorted, crossing her arms.

"Nghh... I went out for those..."

Shego's brow rose as a sudden pang of fear caused her heart rate to rise.

"Did the peanut butter survive?" he asked, leaning over the side of the bed and casting his eyes around.

She stood up and picked up the two fallen jars and set them on the headboard behind him, where the lids already lay. She drank deeply of her water and set the glass down.

"When did you go out?" she asked slowly.

He settled back against the headboard and resumed stirring his hot chocolate.

"About an hour ago... Why?"

Shego blinked. Why indeed? She crossed her arms as she considered her strange reaction to his words. Half the time she never knew where he was, nor did he know where she was. They had never had that type of schedule, where they reported on each other's whereabouts.

But the sudden fear at not knowing where he was...

"Do you want a sandwich?"

She blinked out of her brown study and looked down at him proffering the bagged loaf of bread with an uncertain expression. She took it after a moment and turned it over slowly in her hands as she continued to think.

The aliens were gone. He could go out for groceries. She should be glad he went out for groceries...even if he did hog them all for himself. He wasn't going to be abducted again...

"I, ah...can't sleep," he said, getting her attention again. "Would you like to watch 'Pals' with me?"

She looked up at the TV playing the embarrassing sitcom, and then back to his anxious face. Was that why he'd gone grocery shopping in the middle of the night?

"Sure..." she sighed, setting the bread down and stepped back around the headboard. He scooted over and swept off the blankets, a tiny smile on his face. She rolled her eyes when he patted the space next to him and she grabbed the popcorn bowl, tossing a few pieces in her mouth as she leaned back on the headboard and stretched her legs out.

He turned up the TV volume with the remote and in two huge bites finished off his sandwich.

"Do you want some cocoa-moo?" he asked with a grin.

She fought the urge to say something about his immaturity and just nodded, tossing more popcorn in her mouth. The tiny morsels in her stomach let her know how hungry she really was and she set the bowl down between the two of them and reached for the bread loaf again.

Drakken produced a second mug from somewhere and dropped the chocolate bars inside before pouring the milk. She watched him use his ray gun to heat the beverage with care as she spread a thick layer of peanut butter on one slice of bread.

"There!" he said, presenting the mug to her as she finished putting her sandwich together. "It's perfect. Try it."

She raised a brow, but sipped cautiously from the warm mug. Her second brow joined her first. "This is really good."

He smiled and sat back again, grabbing some popcorn before he sipped from his own mug. "I'll make cookies tomorrow."

She chewed a bite of her sandwich and sat back with a sigh, turning her attention to the TV. Cookies? Why not... She deserved a break, after everything that had happened. So did he.

She glanced sideways at him. With the low collar of his pajamas, she could see the swollen, reddened slits in his skin where the flower petals kept emerging from. She craned her neck to look for the vine, but wherever it came from was hidden.

She thought again about the moment the mutagen had taken him, like a moment out of a cheesy cartoon. She had been afraid then, but of what she wasn't sure. Thinking back, he could have died then just as easily as he could have been killed by the aliens.

She curled her knees up to her chest with a sigh and took another sip of her hot chocolate. Whatever had gotten into her head that told her he was constantly in danger needed to stop. He was fine. Dumb luck had saved him again, and nothing could happen to him while she was right there in the room to protect him.

"Are you cold?" he asked, noting her posture.

"Yes," she said quickly, startled at having been caught in her worried thoughts again.

He looked contemplative. "You could...put your toes under my blanket," he suggested.

Her heart was racing. Why? He was _fine_.

She wiggled the red bedspread and sheet out from under her rear and then tucked her toes under, pulling them up to her shins.

"Can you turn the TV up?" she asked. Maybe the show would drown out her thoughts.

She watched the bars rise on the screen and she took another bite of her sandwich. She tried to catch on to the story, but she wasn't even sure who all the of the characters were. She'd never been able to get into sitcoms. They either over-complicated or over-simplified life. And the characters were all the same in the end.

She leaned her head back with a sigh as she finished her sandwich and dug into the popcorn. She'd ask him to change the channel, but she was concerned it would start an argument. She was pretty sure he liked that show. She knew enough about it to know it always had the type of sappy endings he was attracted to.

She glanced at him again and saw he was grinning happily at the TV. Yep, definitely his type of show...

He must have felt her eyes on him, because his expression suddenly became guarded. His eyes slowly slid to the side and then he started slightly when he realized she was watching him.

"...What?" he asked, shoving some popcorn in his mouth.

She took a drink of her cocoa-moo— _Cocoa-moo? I've gotta get some sleep..._ —and thought quickly for something to say.

"Do those hurt?" she asked.

His eyes darted nervously from side to side. "What?"

She lazily brought her hand to his neck and ran two fingers lightly over one of the reddened slits. "Those."

He only shied away slightly from her touch. "Ah...they itch a little. So does the vine," he said, reaching down the back of his shirt to scratch.

She smirked tiredly. "Figures you'd be allergic to your own super-powers."

He glowered at her for a moment before hunching forward and pulling the edge of the blanket into his lap to fidget.

"What?"

He gave her another frown. "It's not funny."

Her smirk grew. "It kind of is."

"I didn't design it for this. I don't even know what it might do to me."

She looked at the real fear on his face and her heart started racing again. What if the mutation really wasn't compatible with his body? What if she woke up one day to find...it had killed him?

Almost as if in response, the flower-tipped vine started emerging from the back of his neck. She leaned away in disgust, and he gasped when he saw it creeping around his face.

"Can't you feel that?"

He swatted at the vine and it retreated out of sight.

"Not...really," he said. He took a sip from his mug and held it close to his chest, his eyes filling with worry.

Shego set her own mug on the headboard behind her and moved the popcorn bowl forward so she could scoot closer to him. She pulled him back with one hand on his shoulder until he turned to look at her.

"Okay, first thing tomorrow you get to work figuring out exactly how this happened. It can't do too much damage to you overnight, right?"

She had intended the words to be reassuring, but he looked even more worried than before.

"Have you ever _seen_ plants grow?" he said bitterly.

Her heart beat even faster. "L-look, the aliens didn't get you and a stupid plant isn't going to get you either. Okay?"

He looked up at her in surprise, and she drew back at the sudden intensity in his eyes. She realized then that her voice had been shaking. Was she shaking? She was shaking.

She reached behind her quickly and grabbed the mug of cooling chocolate.

"How much sugar is in this stuff, Doc?" she said, staring down into the brown liquid.

"Just the usual..."

She set the mug down and leaned back again, reaching for more popcorn. "Probably shouldn't have that much sugar on an empty stomach."

He crossed his arms and leaned back with a frown. "Well, if you hadn't destroyed the bananas."

"Just watch TV," she said, stretching her legs out again and pulling the blankets up to her knees.

He fell silent, and she listened to the voices and laugh track from the TV for only a few minutes before her thoughts drifted back to the plant mutation.

Could it really kill him overnight? What if he _was_ allergic? How could she stop an allergic reaction to something that had become part of him?

She glanced at him cautiously out of the corner of her eye. He was frowning again, and looking concerned. She sighed. The last thing they needed was for both of them to start freaking out. He needed to sleep so he could start working on a solution in the morning. And she would stay awake all night to make sure he lived to see the next morning.

She leaned across him and grabbed the remote, startling him into a jump, and turned the volume down.

"What—?"

"You done eating?"

He blinked. "Yes..."

"Then you need to get some sleep. Did you sleep at all on that alien ship?"

He blinked again. "No..."

"That's what I thought. So you've been awake for about...forty-eight hours?"

Her eyes widened as she double-checked the calculations in her head. His guilty nod confirmed that she was thinking straight. That meant she'd been awake that long too. The last time they'd slept was the Himalayas.

"At least..." he finally said.

"Yeah..." she sighed deeply. Suddenly she felt the exhaustion of every single one of those hours, and fought the urge to rub her eyes. "So, sleep."

He seemed to shrink in front of her. "I can't."

"Will it help if I stay here until you fall asleep?"

He looked slightly less afraid. "Maybe..."

"Then I'll stay," she said, fighting a yawn.

He blinked twice, seeming to consider it. "Okay."

He settled back against the headboard again, his eyes falling half-closed as he stared at the TV and let himself relax. She turned and leaned sideways against the board and watched him, noting the reddened slits on his neck again. He said they didn't hurt... So if the petals popped out, she would pluck them.

Now that they weren't talking, the dialogue coming from the TV suddenly seemed clearer. She glanced at it as she shifted to make herself more comfortable, pulling the blanket up over her folded legs. Whatever the plot was about, it was obviously fake. All the characters were smiling.

She yawned. How Drakken could enjoy something so lame...

His eyes fell closed and then jerked open. He glanced over at her and shifted uncomfortably.

"Sleep, Doc," she ordered quietly. "You'd be more comfortable if you laid down."

He shook his head. "No, this...this is fine."

She looked at him skeptically, but he turned back to the TV.

She watched the battle as his eyes fell closed and jerked open several times in succession. She yawned again and turned her head back toward the TV. Apparently this was going to take awhile...

* * *

The first thing Shego was aware of was the sound of running water. Then, the feeling of being well-rested. She smiled and stretched herself out from head to toe...and then she froze. She was far too warm. And it took only another moment to figure out why.

She was pressed against another body, the person's arms wrapped tightly around her. The arms were familiar, and yet they weren't. She took note of her own arms wrapped around the person's back, and one of her legs between the person's and linked behind one of their heels.

Her heart began beating faster, but she kept her breathing even. As she cast her mind back to the night before it wasn't hard to guess the exact identity of the person holding her. That's why the arms where familiar—they had frequently embraced her without permission in the past. And the running water she heard was obviously the moat.

Part of her was panicking as her heart beat harder and every one of her nerve ends began tingling. But another part of her wanted to hold on tighter and go back to sleep.

Why?

Because if she let go now...it would never happen again. And she wanted it to.

She wanted it to...

She cautiously opened her eyes and tilted her head back. The first thing she saw was yellow, and her brow twisted in confusion. Then she realized she was looking at flower petals and she cautiously lifted one hand to push them aside.

Her head was tucked under Drakken's chin, and all she could really see was his stubble. But if she lifted her head up she could just see one of his closed eyes past his high cheekbone.

He sighed lightly, and she felt her heart beat even faster. She carefully lay her head back down and nestled her face back into his chest. When he woke up, he would freak out... Probably run away, splutter something nonsensical, and then accuse her of something ridiculous.

She closed her eyes. Yes, going back to sleep was definitely the better option...

* * *

Drakken's eyes flew open. Something was wrong. He had only to take a breath before he knew what it was.

Someone—_Shego_—was pressed up against him in his bed and trapped by his iron grip. He let her go and leaned back with a gasp, preparing to shield himself from attack.

But attack didn't come. She was asleep.

His brow twisted in confusion as his breaths came in great heaves. He yanked the petals out of his neck and tossed them aside, staring at her. She looked...peaceful. Calm.

Very un-Shego-like.

She made a small sound of discomfort and he bit his lip as he felt one of her legs between his, pulling against his heel. He had to get out of there, fast.

He realized then that her arms were also around him, and he swallowed nervously as he gently started to pick one up and lift it off.

She made another sound and moved in close to him again. His heart was pounding. He didn't know how this had happened, but it wouldn't matter. As soon as she woke up, he was dead. He tried this time to pull his leg away.

The result was the same as before, with both her arms and her leg tightening their grip on him. What was he to do?

The petals popped out around his neck again, one of them smacking her in the face. Her eyes flew open.

He opened his mouth to start apologizing and choked on his own breath as her eyes lifted up and narrowed on his.

"I... I'm—"

"What time is it?" she asked.

He blinked. Didn't she realize where she was?

"Um..." he glanced past her at his bedside clock. "It's...2:14. PM."

His eyes widened. How long had he been asleep?

"I'm still tired," she said through a sigh, her arms circling tighter around him. He felt one of her hands reach up to his neck and her fingers begin to run through his ponytail.

"Um..." His voice was shaking. "Shego... Um...don't you think—"

"Doc," she interrupted impatiently, closing her eyes and tucking her head under his chin again. "Just go with it."

What was happening? Why wasn't she killing him? How did they get there?

"Close your eyes," she said, her voice muffled by his chest.

He blinked. He looked at the clock, at the TV, at their cocoa mugs... At her dark hair splayed back across the red blanket that was tucked up tight around them both. When...how had this happened?

"But..."

"Close your eyes. And put your arm down."

He realized his arm was still hovering above her, not daring to touch her while the other was trapped under her. He held his breath and slowly lowered his arm down to rest on her side.

"Wait..." she said. He felt her shift away and he instantly pulled back, waving his hands defensively.

"Shego, I swear I have no idea how—" He stopped, his brow rising quizzically.

She had leaned up on her side and was pulling her sage-colored robe off revealing her darker green cotton pajamas underneath.

"Too hot," she said in explanation, tossing the garment aside before flopping down and snuggling back into him. One of her arms slipped up his back and the other up his chest, her hands gripping his shoulders. His breath caught as her leg slipped between his again and her heel hooked behind his.

He looked down at her at the same time she looked up, his eyes wide and lower lip trembling.

"Dr. D.," she began, her voice soft. "You saved the world. For once...just relax and don't worry. Don't worry about anything. You deserve it."

Her fingers were lightly kneading his shoulders as she looked at him, her eyes entreating. He swallowed down the lump that had formed in his throat and gently wrapped his arms around her. Her expression softened into an almost-smile and he sighed shakily, slowly weaving his fingers into her hair.

She closed her eyes, and he saw her smirk before she set her head under his chin again.

"Hmm," she hummed.

"Wh-what?" he asked, bringing his hands up to her shoulders and pulling her closer.

"Hero," she teased, lightly squeezing his shoulder.

He grimaced for a moment at the thought, but it was short-lived as he felt her pull herself closer to him. His heart was pounding, but...he remembered her words. _Don't worry..._

He closed his eyes and nestled into her hair with a contented smile.

"Back at you."


End file.
